The Sessions - Nov & Dec 2019
Bad weather & work…..
I signed off last month after a having another fantastic month Barbel fishing with 23 Barbel landed 10 being doubles to 16-07, would Nov be as good?
4 Nov - River Trent, Tidal
Since my last trip on 21-23 Oct the rain had continued to fall and the river had burst its banks and been all over the fields and in some cases over the roads. I was due to be on Gunthorpe Weir for a week but that was totally unfishable so I headed up to the flood swims on the Tidal. On the drive down the lane I saw two Roe Deer trying to cross into the next field, one jumped the fence and trotted over, this young girl got scared and didn’t cross but she waited long enough for me to get this great shot of her.
The river was 12 feet up and right to the top of the bank and full of colour, it had been this high or higher for two weeks and I felt the fish will have gorged themselves so didn’t put much bait in, just 10 Asbo to get the scent in the water. I went for the small hooks and bait again, one on Pandemic and the other on Asbo with a pva bag and flicked them out at 16:45. The first bite came at 18:00 but did not connect, on inspection the hook had turned into the bait so didn’t hook the fish.
19:40 hours – the Pandemic went and I landed a 9+ that I thought would be the start of a good night but I didn’t get another bite in near perfect flood conditions. I can only think that all the high water has made the fish move to an area they are comfortable in during the prolonged flood conditions.
23 Nov – River Trent, tidal
The rain had continued to fall causing the river to flood and burst its banks again, all the fisheries had been closed with no access to the river. Foolishly I hadn’t planned for this and had no back up plan for still water fishing at all and with my birthday on the 16th I hadn’t been out.
It was 9 degrees and cloudy with night temps forecast to be 7 degrees, the river level had dropped but was still 10 feet above normal winter level. There was three fishable swims and I went in my first choice but it had been left for a reason, the bank was a quagmire and very slippery. I spent an hour turning it over with a shovel exposing the sand under the mud and then trod broken branches into it to give me grip, this worked ok and made it safer, the last thing I needed was to slip into 15 feet of muddy cold water.
My pal Dave had caught and 11-08 but nothing else had been caught all day on both sides of the river. I went for the small hooks and baits again, with one on Asbo and the other on Pandemic and started at 14:30. It started raining again and didn’t stop making the swim a mud bath again.
21:40 hours – apart from a Bream that came off, it had been very quiet. Finally a proper take when the Asbo rod went over and it was a good one at 13-05, the mud was that bad I nearly didn’t photograph it, it was awful.
23:25 hours – the same rod went again resulting in a high 9+
I fished through until 09:00 without another take and packed up.
I had hoped to get out again in Nov and fish in Dec but the rain and flooding put an end to that. When the river was fishable I was working or doing family stuff over xmas so just couldn’t get out. My pals had the odd good night but generally it was poor so I hadn’t missed much, hopefully in the new year things will pick up.
Happy xmas and new year to all.
Until next month tight lines and be lucky 😊
Big thanks to my sponsors for their continued support,